im really really scared....? :-(?

[PoohBearPenguin]

The Mayan calendar is not based on the same system as ours. The end of the long count just means their calendar is going from the 9999th cycle to the 10,000th one. Dec. 21 2012 is nothing but their New Year's Eve.

Heck, our calendar ends every year on Dec. 31. That doesn't mean Hallmark Corp. is saying the world is going to end, does it?

While the Mayans did write prophecies about the end of the world, the show is being a bit disingenuous here linking the prophecies about the end of the world to the end of the calendar.

As for other prophecies in general...you have to be careful with them. Did the Mayans literally say "A storm named Katrina will hit New Orleans"? No, they're never that explicit are they? Or did people try to interpret some vague passage maybe about "big water" and say "Ah ha! Big Water refers to a flood or tsunami or maybe a hurricane and Katrina was certainly a big hurricane, therefore the Mayans predicted Katrina!" I bet if you had talked to these same people years before Katrina had happened, they would have claimed the prophecy referred to another hurricane. Here's another question - how did the people know this prophecy didn't refer to hurricane Sandy? That show was made several years ago, so Sandy hadn't have happened yet. Seems this would have been a good chance for them to go back and say "Ah ha! I was write - the prophecy was about Sandy!"

It's really easy to look at prophecies and claim they apply to events that have already happened. That way you can carefully pick and choose your interpretation so it fits the event you have chosen.

Even if the Mayans wrote "Big hurricane to hit big city!", with over 70% of humanity living within 20 miles of a coastline, that's not a prophecy. It's a statistical fact. It's like announcing to a crowd of people "I sense someone here has recently lost a loved one..." and someone replies, that doesn't mean you're a psychic right?

So, let's see here. We have a bunch of people claiming that the world is going to end on the Mayan New Year's Eve when even the Mayans never claimed such a thing, and say the Mayans predicted a big storm which may - or may not - refer to Katrina, or some big storm we have yet to experience or maybe it just referred to that really big rain storm that destroyed the chief's hut 1200 years ago.

I could go on but hopefully this has given you enough to convince yourself to make plans for December 22nd and beyond.